kenneth fish wrote:
I was also referring to your comment on Liang and Master Zhang. As I said, the Liang Tzupeng who was well known in Hong Kong (and not a mantis boxer) was someone Master Zhang was on good terms with. Moreover, I never heard from anyone on the island that Master Zhang had been on the losing end of an encounter with a mantis boxer of any stripe. That kind of thing would certainly have made the rounds.
As for Master Zhang and Master Zheng - they were certainly on decent terms. I have heard from several sources (as did Dan Miller, in the his research for the Pa Kua Journal ) that Master Zhang was instrumental in Master Zheng's employment by Madame Jiang. It was Master Zhang who had originally been approached to teach (he taught a version of Hao style taiji). He was not inclined to accept for a number of reasons. He was doing quite well financially at the time, both with the kung fu school and his various businesses. His fortunes relied heavily on the good will of the local Taiwanese (the benshengren). Although Master Zhang held President Jiang Jieshi in tremendous respect, he did not want to risk the stability of his enterprises by appearing to close to President Jiang and the KMT (this was not terribly long after the February 28th massacre, and it was very much in peoples minds.) At the same time Master Zheng was teaching in a park near the old downtown, and was apparently not financially in good straits. Master Zhang arranged for an invitation to be extended to Master Zheng in his stead - and so both profited from the arrangement.
My calligraphy teacher, LI Yali (Alice Li) was a Kuo Da Daibiao (National Representative - a legislative position) and herself both a student of and classmate to Pu Yi (the last emperor, who was a master of calligraphy). Whenever she would hear Zheng mentioned, she would mutter "wujue - pah!" (the last being a bit of a spitting noise) - again, he seemed to have alienated more than a few in the arts community.
I mention this as a means of pointing out that whatever his skill level was (and I frankly have no idea - I was never attracted to his system) he was not well regarded outside the narrow community of Taiji (and this was probably his own doing) . I think it is this (more than a question of skill) that made him an outcast in Chinese society. As for the States and abroad - perhaps the association of Master Zheng's taiji with so much of the New Age crowd has led to a questioning of his teachings.
Ken,
Perhaps the encounter in the park was how Liang Tzu-p’eng and Chang Chun-feng got to be friends! Even from Mr. Smith’s re-telling of the encounter it doesn’t sound like Liang and Chang had any animosity towards each other…
And it was very kind of Chang to defer his chance of teaching Madame Chiang to Prof. Cheng.
Regarding your esteemed calligraphy teacher, just how many times did Prof. Cheng’s name come up in her presence? And as for the “Wu Chueh” moniker, Prof. Cheng didn’t just decide to name himself that; it was bestowed upon him by Lin Sen, the Nationalist President of China from 1931-1943, on a calligraphic scroll in the 1940’s in Chungking!
If President Obama publically presented YOU with a scroll proclaiming “Kenneth Fish: Master of the Incredible” or some such title, wouldn’t people remind you of that from time to time?
And as for alienating himself in the arts community, well…while on the mainland at the age of 22 he was invited to teach poetry at Yu Wen University in Peking; in 1925 he and Chang Ta-ch’ien and other artists founded the Hsiao Han Painting Society in Shanghai; in 1926 he was recommended to be Chairman of the Department of Chinese Painting at the Shanghai School of Fine Arts, and also was invited to teach poetry at National Chi Nan University in Shanghai; during this time he was also invited to join the prestigious Chia Tzu Painting Society. In 1928 he was a founding member and assistant director of the China Fine Arts Institute in Shanghai….
In 1949 in Taiwan he became a founding member of the Seven Friends of Calligraphy and Painting Society, and the Painting Society of the Republic of China where he served as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Chinese Painting Committee.
He was also appointed member and judge for the National Art Exhibition Committee and National Painting and Calligraphy Exhibition Planning Committee; and was an Instructor at the Chinese Culture Institute in Taipei.
And in a January 1951 letter to Chang Hsueh-liang by Madame Chiang she writes, “The Generalissimo suggested that I take up painting as a kind of spiritual practice, so I invited Huang Chun-pi to teach me landscape painting and Cheng Man-ch’ing’s flower painting is unrivaled. The two of them are in no way inferior to Chang Ta-ch’ien and Hsu Pei-hung.”
(The above found in ‘Zheng Manqing’s Uncollected Writings…”trans. by Douglas Wile)
So it seems obvious from the above Ken, that Prof. Cheng was very much accepted and in the mix of the cultural and fine arts scene both on the mainland and in Taiwan.
Danny
